Saturday, February 2, 2008

More from 1st Japan shoot

Whew! It took over a month, but I was finally able to go through the images we took in Japan this past December and do the post production work on them. I really need to streamline my RAW workflow in Adobe Lightroom so that I can get these done faster next time.

This was the studio that we rented in Japan. A bit small, but very close to the train station so it was pretty easy to find.

Since this was my first time to this studio, I was not sure what to expect as far as lighting equipment that was available. Due to luggage weight restrictions on the airlines, I was not able to bring along my studio lighting equipment from Hawaii. When I looked at the studio's website, I saw these two softbox lights which I assumed were strobes. I figured I could get by with two strobes in softboxes.

When I arrived at the studio I found out that these were "hot lights" - continuous light sources, not strobes as I had initially thought (I REALLY need to learn to read more kanji). This was a bit of a challenge for me, as I was used to using "hot lights" for video work, not photography.

Luckily I had brought along my Strobist kit - 2 small lightstands, 2 umbrellas and a pair of Nikon SB24 flashes. I ended up using the hot lights to light the model and matched it with the SB24s with umbrellas to light and hide the wrinkles in the white backdrop.

While the makeup artist and hair stylist were working on Stephanie's second look for the shoot, I tried to think of something I could do with just my Strobist kit. I knew that I wanted to color the background to help the model's outfit stand out more. I put an SB-24 with an umbrella on a stand to my right to illuminate the model. I then stuck a Gary Fong Whaletail with a blue gel onto my other SB-24 and stuck it behind the cushions in the corner behind the model to get this:

Overall, it was a great learning experience, and we got some really cool images out of this shoot. To see more images from this shoot, visit www.mizomi.com